


Gods and Heroes

by hannahrhen



Series: Ice and Dust and Light [10]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet, Brief Sexual Situations, Happy Ending, M/M, Mpreg, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-26
Updated: 2013-01-26
Packaged: 2017-11-27 00:26:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/656005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannahrhen/pseuds/hannahrhen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"This doesn't have to be a love story."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gods and Heroes

So, time passed, as it does. 

Fray grew, with tiny Colin toddling behind. At four, Fray drew pictures of dinosaurs and butterflies and trees, and he could manage an impressive interpretation of Captain America’s shield, even if Cap himself was barely more than a circle-head on an arrangement of sticks. Colin pointed at Fray’s drawings and helpfully announced, “Cap! Cap!,” which irritated and encouraged Fray in equal measure. Thor, under two _other_ careful sets of eyes, encouraged their allegiance at every turn, mediated their disputes fairly.

It took a year, but Pepper and SHIELD managed Loki’s emergence as the other parent of the Stark children--the Starksons, the boys were called again. It would be a lie to say that it was smooth, or even “successful,” really, and both the God of Mischief and Tony Stark knew from lies. No one--no one--was ever going to forget the extreme telephoto shots of Loki, grinning from the top of a skyscraper, as aliens stormed Manhattan’s skies.

But Tony Stark also knew how to use the media, so stories of Loki’s painful youth, his discovery of his heritage, and suggestions of his manipulation by Thanos were seeded in the same rags that had speculated about the children’s origins in the years before. Loki would never be as accepted as, say, Camilla Parker-Bowles, but at least they had a blueprint to work from.

They didn’t marry--nothing like it. They didn’t even hold hands. They merely stood, together but usually facing away from each other, in the background of paparazzi shots of other Avengers. While Tony, wearing a practiced grin, walked with Fray, Loki carried their younger son, not bothering with more than a watchful expression. 

Tony and Loki rarely interacted on camera, but they also rarely parted.

Time passed. 

And ... if Tony had a clock counting _down_ in his head, rather than clicking ever forward into an unknown future--well. No one--not his teammates, not the children, not his lover--needed to know. 

***

So, on a gorgeous summer day when their older child was four, Tony took Loki to a tiny island in the Caribbean. A beautiful locale--not a vacation, however, he carefully explained to a suspicious Loki. Tony had business; after all, he always had business _somewhere_.

The only difference was that, this time, Loki came with him. Without the boys.

Clock ticking backward in his head, Tony had worked for a solid year--suggesting, enticing, insisting--before Loki agreed to leave Colin and Fray behind with the other five Avengers. He pointed out--repeatedly--that not a single hair on either’s head had been touched in the two years since the kidnapping. That the additional security systems were doing their job, without two parents constantly hovering.

“And sometimes,” Tony had whispered into Loki’s ear, just feet away from where the boys played, “Daddy and Daddy need some alone time. Just to do Daddy things.”

“I don’t know what those are.” Loki had pushed at his chest, covering his anxiety with annoyance. 

“The fact that you don’t know what I’m talking about--” Here Tony continued over Loki’s pointed look. “--tells me some Daddy time is desperately needed.” Tony traced one fingertip up to Loki’s shoulder, making Loki shiver in a very promising way, his fingers twist from pushing away to kneading into Tony’s shirt. Loki’s body responded like an instrument to Tony’s cues, a song perfected over their now-years together.

The ticking sound dulled in Tony’s mind as Loki--finally, curtly--nodded.

So here they were, between Tony’s meetings, in the early afternoon of a second beautiful day. Tony was resting on the white linens of the bungalow’s master bedroom, shoulders up against the bed’s mahogany headboard. 

Across the room, Loki stood at the doors to the patio, facing away, looking past the lush green of palm trees and tropical flowers and toward the beach. His arms were crossed as he leaned on the doorframe. Tony watched him without a word, surveying the loose linen shirt that flowed from collar to hips, the green Madras shorts he’d bought Loki as a tease but that still fit him fine as sin, falling to mid-thigh and leaving the rest of his long legs--and his feet--bare. 

Likely aware he was being watched, Loki shifted, turned his head back a fraction. “I can see why you find this appealing,” he said, finally. Tony hid a smile as he changed his train of thought; _that_ concession was hard-won.

Tony reclined back on the pillows, head on his folded hands. Hell, yeah, he was smug. “Yep. I know it isn’t quite your thing, babe, but I was hoping you’d see my point of view. Just wanted some time away. Just … “ He trailed off. Then, sitting up: “Come over here, okay?” He didn’t even try to hide the needful tone. 

Loki looked back, a small smile appearing. “You seem to be very single-minded on this trip. I thought it was for business.” His eyes narrowed. “Don’t you have a meeting?”

Tony huffed. “Later. A half-hour--I’ll take it.” Then, he offered a grin. “I mean, how long has it been since we had a half-hour without the chance of being interrupted? At least twice?”

“Twice? I imagine--,” he pretended to think for a minute, “--two years or so.” 

“Yeah, so … come on.” He patted the bed.

But Loki didn’t fall into Tony’s arms the way Tony had fantasized about in the week since he’d extracted the agreement. Instead, he gave Tony a long, careful look as he approached the bed. He never took watchful eyes off the other as he climbed carefully onto the end of the mattress.

Legs folded in front of him, simply studying Tony, Loki looked ...

Like he wanted to talk. 

_Oh. **Lovely.**_ Tony locked his face in a genially neutral expression. “Something, uh--up, over there?” Pause. “Aaallll the way over there?” He poked Loki’s knee with his foot.

“Yes.” Loki met the touch with his own fingers, capturing Tony’s teasing foot and trying to tickle his arch before it was wrenched away. “There is something I wish to ask you.”

Eh, _even better_. Tony’s face was starting to feel like a waxen mask. He took a breath, offered up a suspicious, “Mmkay?”

The next words were, actually, the last he’d expected to hear. Loki paused for a moment; then, with a barely concealed glint in his eye, asked, “Will you have another child?”

Time passed--really, too much time. Tony stared for a moment, blank, his brain processing every possible fragment, every concept and visual of child, and Fray-Colin, and Loki pregnant, and “he’s asking,” and fucking, of course, all the glorious fucking, until he suddenly realized he’d crossed the acceptable period of silence. “Oh!” was what Loki got. Then: “Wow.”

Loki raised his eyebrows. He looked mildly amused, but, as Tony knew from past experience, that could be a ruse. Or dangerously temporary. Things were on the verge of getting bad if he didn’t do better, and fast, if he couldn’t figure out where Loki was coming from. “Uh, okay--another kid?” He stalled. “Okay. Uh, three, then.”

The response, dry as a bone: “Yes. That _would_ be the resulting count of our children.” 

“That just--I’m surprised, that’s all.” He said the next as unemotionally as he could. He was still trying to read Loki’s expression without giving up too much of his own, still trying to clear away the images of their (current) children, the possibility of another, and, of course, the fact that Loki--maybe?--was actually asking him this time. “I thought--I guess I thought we were done?”

And Loki wasn’t offering him anything at all. Instead, Tony was simply peered at plainly. The question, when finally asked, was therapist-neutral: “Do you want to be done?”

Tony paused, still studying the god’s face but ultimately giving up the dream of any revelation there. Finally, he just sighed and said, “Not … necessarily. If it’s … you know. What you want.”

Loki hummed. Tony knew he hadn’t precisely passed this latest test, but his answers were still being scored. “Then ... you’d have another?”

Tony narrowed his eyes at the terminology, but he nodded. “I hadn’t really … thought about it. I mean, three is the magic number, I guess, and you can’t argue with Sesame Street--or De La Soul--but I also thought …”

Loki just looked at him.

Tony suddenly realized ... For a moment, just a moment, he couldn’t hear the countdown. 

He gave Loki a long look in return, and then, words forming with just a flare of instinct behind: “Um, yeah--okay. Yeah. Sure.” Tony surveyed the bed covers nervously, flattening out a crease in the sheet with an itchy palm. Then, more firmly: “Yes. Yes, let’s have another one.” He looked up, this time producing a glassy smile, sincerity a projectile between them. “ … Is there anything … special I need to do? If we do this? I mean, you kind of just surprised me with the other two--”

Loki studied him, a little line appearing between his brows. Almost ... uncertain. He looked like he intended to speak once--then twice--and then, Tony noted, he came to some kind of decision. His expression turned shrewd. 

Shifted up to his knees, Loki said, “Just … I need to … let me just--begin this spell--”

With that, Tony sat up, started to move to his own knees. “... spell? Like, a fertility thing?”

Loki’s smile broadened. One hand landed on Tony’s shoulder. “Of course.” And the other grazed his abdomen. “To prepare you for the pregnancy.”

The clattering noise of conflicting thoughts--fragments and images--died off in Tony’s head as Loki’s last words echoed alone. He was--and it happened so rarely--speechless. 

For about ten seconds.

It wasn’t until Loki raised his hands to do some kind of ... some kind of incantation, that Tony was forced into responding before he grew ovaries. “Uh,” was what came out. Then, “Uh--hang on,” he repeated, putting his own hand up in a defensive gesture.

Loki frowned, and something in the expression ratcheted up Tony’s discomfort even more. “What?” He looked at Tony’s palm, then offered a slow, wicked smile. “Is there a problem?”

He shook his head. “You didn’t ... you didn’t say anything about me being the pregnant one. I thought that was your thing.”

The smile was now a shark-toothed grin. “But where’s the fairness in that? Oh, no, Tony--now it’s your turn.”

Another ten seconds of silence. 

Finally, Loki spoke again, an exaggerated confusion across his brow. “I thought you would enjoy growing the next one. Feeling it inside you. Its feet kicking you from the inside--it’s quite pleasurable.”

“Okay--yeah. Well, I’ll take your word for it.” And the glare he got for that could have killed a weaker man. “Well, uh--here’s the thing. I don’t really have the parts for it, and I’m not twenty-five anymore--or immortal, for that matter. Or a shapeshifter. And there’s this thing,” he added, knocking on his chest, “which doesn’t take kindly to being jostled …” 

Tony could tell Loki was losing patience. The god merely said, “All of which I can accommodate.”

Tony shot him a dubious look. “With magic.”

Loki smiled, all teeth. “With magic, yes.” He shrugged lightly. “Certainly there will be stretch marks and you’ll constantly need to urinate, and ... ” And somewhere in the litany of side effects and incipient, significant emotional trauma, Tony tuned him out. Instead, he just _looked_ at Loki for a long time. Imagined the glint of Loki’s smile on another one of their children, whether this one would have Fray’s jet-black hair or Colin’s chocolate brown. Aggressive like Fray or reserved like his brother. Boy or girl.

And, for a moment, he thought of that clock that, in his head, counted ever downward. That, briefly, temporarily, was muted. Tony let out a breath. “Yeah, okay. Just … yeah.”

The answer, oddly, seemed to catch Loki off-guard. “Hm?”

Firmly: “Yes, do it. Let’s do it.”

The smile faded. Loki just blinked.

***

Loki could only … blink. Then said, in a tone both dry and utterly disbelieving: “You would … let yourself be impregnated. ... Really.” 

Tony shrugged. “You know, I’ve done stranger, honestly. Put stranger things in me.” He tapped his chest again, and it resounded with a flat clicking noise. Then he smiled weakly at Loki. “And other strange things have been in me, of course.”

Loki tilted his head, still baffled. “Indeed. But … I didn’t know that you truly wanted another, Tony. Not ... that much.”

Tony looked away, scratched a fingernail at a loose thread on the comforter. “I could go either way, you know. The boys are great. Things are … well, I think things are great.” He looked at the other. “ _I_ think things are great. I actually didn’t think you wanted it. That much.”

“Why?”

“Ugh, _talking,_ ” Tony huffed. He pulled his knees up to his chest, struggled to sit up straighter. “Okay, fine--look. Let’s talk.” He gave Loki a hard look. “What are we doing? Honestly? You know?” He waved his hands between them. “Just dicking around with each other, right, while we’re raising these kids? Playing house, like real grownups?” 

He paused, but Loki could read that it was simply for effect. Indeed, Tony pressed on, “I assume we keep this going until Colin is eighteen--or whatever the age of maturity is where you’re from. His bar mitzvah or quinceañera or whatever.” He wrapped his arms around his knees. “Doesn’t this just push the countdown back that much farther?”

“‘Countdown.’” Loki felt his frown deepen. 

“I mean, well,” Tony looked down at his hands. “It’s pretty clear this isn’t, you know, a permanent thing. For you. It can’t be. Because of what you are. _I_ can’t be, because of what I am. All offers aside to knock me up like a sixteen-year-old prom date, I’m already getting up there. We’ve been together, now, for--how do you count it? Three years? Five, from when you showed up in the penthouse. 

“By the time Colin is of age, I’ll be--well. I’m planning to age like Patrick Stewart, so just assume ‘fine wine,’ but ... You know. Assuming you stick around ‘til then, you’ll probably be ready to move on. 

“So--you know, why reset the countdown? Maybe I’ll get a few more years, at the end ... but maybe you’ll be ready long before then anyway.”

Tony’s words left a hollow ache in Loki’s chest. “Am I to understand that you mean ... the countdown until--I leave. You’re counting down until I leave. Or you assume _I_ am.”

Tony squinted at him. “Yeah. Right?”

“And you believe I’ve made this clear.”

Tony had the look on his face, the one that said he knew he was moving into a dangerous topic and was going to try to retrace his steps back out. He held up a hand. “You know--forget it. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is … if you want a third one, I’m game, is all I’m saying.”

Loki didn’t speak for a long time. 

“If you were playing a game, Loki--so help me--”

“I … thought I was, but perhaps … not.” Loki was quiet for a moment. “No, perhaps not.”

“Well, I’ll do it.” Tony clapped his hands together, rubbed them vigorously. “Get that mojo fired up, babe. Let’s do this.” Tony pushed himself back on the bed. “Ravish me.”

With a soft smile, Loki crawled over to Tony, pressing a soft kiss on his mouth. In response, Tony’s whole body moved to catch him--legs teasing around Loki’s sides, arms snaking around his neck and shoulder. The usual Stark zero-to-sixty, and it fanned the embers of affection in Loki’s chest. But, instead of pursuing the kiss, escalating, Loki lifted himself from the bed. “You have a meeting, Tony. We’ll ... I’ll see you afterward.” 

Catching Tony’s frown briefly before he turned, he moved through the doors toward the beach.

***

Loki was on the beach that evening, walking far down the shore during Tony’s meeting, distracting himself with the island’s wildlife and plants while Tony showered and made dinner arrangements. The sun was dropping low as Loki stood, hands on hips, looking into the distant horizon. At water that merged into a smooth, unbroken line, gold and sparkling in the setting sun. 

When Tony finally came up behind him, the god wasn’t startled, but he remained still, allowing Tony the illusion of stealth. 

Heard a quiet, “There’s no spell, is there.” 

He smiled absently into the horizon. “No. It was merely a trick.”

Tony stepped up to his side, into Loki’s peripheral vision. “A trick, or a test?” 

They didn’t look at each other.

“A trick, truly.” Loki paused. “I don’t think _you_ were the one being tested.”

Tony snorted, and Loki saw him shake his head from the corner of his eye. “Fuck, I knew it. You’re a real shithead sometimes.”

Loki nodded. “I’ve been called that, and worse.” He paused. “As far as your countdown goes--”

“You know what? Forget I said anything. Seriously.” Tony folded his arms over his chest. “Look. I want to make this clear--getting older? Dying--a long time from now, by the way? Not a problem for me.” He laughed, and instead of bitterness, Loki heard--something else. “Everyone I know--well, everyone I knew until recently, I guess, is gonna grow old, if we’re lucky, and gonna die. 

“Yeah, okay, now things are a little more complicated--you, and Thor, and Bruce and Steve. Suddenly, I’m kind of a minority, but in a very bizarre little high school clique of the best and ... longest-lived? The Methuselah club?” Another snort. “Anyway, you know how many times people have tried to kill me--hell, you’re one of them. How many times I thought I was dead? And I’m still here, and life ... Life is pretty goddamned good, Loki.

“Pretty goddamned good,” he emphasized carefully. “I have two beautiful kids who are under the protection of gods and heroes. And they will--they _will_ \--outlive me. You’ll make sure of it.”

Tony turned slightly toward him, and Loki nodded. _Obviously._

“If you’re with me--for however long--that’s ... yeah, that’s good, too. But it’s not strictly ... It’s not a requirement, you know? For me to be okay. You don’t have to ... This doesn’t have to be a love story, is all I’m saying.”

Loki hummed noncommittally, his brow creased in thought.

“So.” Tony nudged his upper arm with three insistent fingertips. “Kind of sorry you opened this can of worms, huh? You having a vacation downer?”

“No. Not at all.” He finally turned to face Tony. Saw the other man’s soft expression, on this beach he’d made Loki come to just to have the time together. He took a breath and said, “But ... I do ... I do want you to test me again. I think ... I can perform better, this time.”

Tony just looked back at him, face tinged first with confusion, and then a slow kind of understanding.

***

The evening turned to night, and it was now pitch black beyond the windows. 

Loki’s thighs still burned from where Tony had pushed them apart and mounted him earlier, his skin slick from Tony’s seed and their combined sweat. 

Tony reached over, palmed and stroked his inner thigh. Tried to talk with a too-dry throat, producing only a croak. He swallowed and then tried again: “So, do you think it took?”

Loki found the caress pleasing, and he shifted into it. “Yes,” he replied. “It did.” He could already feel the changes taking place deep in his core.

“Number three, on the way.” A pleased sound. “So, the idea is just keep doing this until I drop dead, huh?”

Loki chuckled. “Something like that.” He rolled into Tony’s arms, pressed his face, and then a kiss, into his neck.

Tony pulled away, looked down at Loki with an arched brow, a knowing smirk. “It doesn’t-- You know, it won’t change the end result. ... I mean, ultimately.”

Loki looked at Tony--thought of Tony’s smile, his eyes, his densely-woven mind passed on countless children, grandchildren, and on and on for centuries--millennia into the future. 

He merely replied, “Won’t it?”

***

So, time passed, as it does.

Fray and Colin were joined by younger Starksons, and even the occasional Lokisdottir, who grew strong if slowly under many careful, nurturing eyes. And, in time, these children, born one after the other by the mutual consent and from the shared affection of their parents, changed the face of the world. These children born of gods and heroes.

Tony had been right in one thing--it didn’t have to be a love story. But, in the end, in the face of so much evidence, who could say it wasn’t?

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to everyone who followed this series! I won't say this is the absolute end, definitively, but it's likely the end of this chronological narrative. May still do some interludes or drabbles in this 'verse if I find I miss these guys too much. ( **Edited to add** : There is now a short epilogue as part 11.)
> 
> (Here is some [author meta](http://hannahrhen.tumblr.com/post/41551953300/musings-on-end-of-ice-and-dust-and-light) about the entire series on Tumblr, if you're interested. I HAVE FEELS.)
> 
> You can find me publicly hand-wringing over my writing, or fangirling over other people's, on Tumblr: <http://hannahrhen.tumblr.com/>


End file.
